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Technology

Satellite Phones Making A Comeback? 132

Posted by michael from the pocket-sized-they-aren't dept.
carnun writes: "Over at CommVerge there is an interesting article updating what's happening on the Satellite phone market... Is this just another blow in the Iridium cluster or are we finally going to be able to sit with our laptops and connect from the middle of the Sahara?"
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Satellite Phones Making A Comeback? More

Satellite Phones Making A Comeback?

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  • Laptop in Sahara (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bonzoesc ( 155812 ) on Thursday August 23, 2001 @11:23PM (#2211971) Homepage
    If you're in the middle of the Sahara and all you have to get help is your laptop, you're pretty screwed whether you have satellite modem access or not. Now, on the beach in a resort in some dirty third-world country, that's another story.
    • Actually, if you have a GPS receiver you could contact your home government and give them your coordinates to within a meter. That's more information than most 911 operators have to go on. But would you stay alive long enough for help to arrive?
      • True - this was supposed to be funny, I don't think it's particularly insightful.
      • You better have a pretty charged-up battery on your laptop. Otherwise it's like being stuck in a bomb shelter without a can-opener :)

      • Utter bollocks ! A GPS receiver is precisely that : a receiver. No information whatsoever is emitted.
        • This is *exactly* what I first thought, but then I realized that that's not at all what was being said.

          I believe (s?)he was saying that with a GPS and a satellite phone, you could use the GPS to get your precise coordinates, and then use the phone to call/e-mail them to someone.

          But I agree, it does sound a lot like you're supposed to *be* tracked by your GPS.

    • Re:Laptop in Sahara (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I was recently in the middle of the sahara (Timbuktu, Mali). I joined part of a caravan going from Zagora in Morocco to Timbuktu. I had no problems connecting to the internet from my tri-band Motorola TimePort phone. All you need is a Gemplus smartcard from Mali Telecom. Of course I had to switch to OS 9 on my Titanium PowerBook G4 (which performed marvellously in the 110-115 degree heat -- except for softened rubber pads) since OS X still does not have support for the built in infrared ports....

      Now Timbuktu and Mali is really as remote as it can get. And you can still transmit electrons from there.
    • Now, on the beach in a resort in some dirty third-world country, that's another story.

      Pffft. Try the USA. Say, 30 miles east of Reno, NV (or most of the interstate through to Sacramento, IIRC). US cellular sucks ass for those of us used to 99% national coverage.
    • Now, on the beach in a resort in some dirty third-world country, that's another story.


      That's Mister dirty third-world country to you, matey.


      Have you seen the cleanliness of London or New York lately?


      This technology, once the price/bandwidth drops to a reasonable level, will enable me to move out of my dirty, noisy but beloved Georgetown, Guyana to the far Rupununi Savannah's.

  • Sahara? (Score:4, Funny)

    by PopeAlien ( 164869 ) on Thursday August 23, 2001 @11:24PM (#2211975) Homepage Journal
    or are we finally going to be able to sit with our laptops and connect from the middle of the Sahara?"

    ..For what it would cost you for the service, you might as well just run cat5 cable out there..

  • You can already! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sourcehunter ( 233036 ) on Thursday August 23, 2001 @11:27PM (#2211981) Homepage
    "...or are we finally going to be able to sit with our laptops and connect from the middle of the Sahara?"

    Iridium [iridium.com] already has data services just about anywhere in the world... Of course, you have to be willing to pay for it and the throughput is only 10Kbps for (i'm guessing) anything that is easily compressed (ie text). According to their site, "Graphics and images will result in lower throughput."

    Seriously though, the battery power required to transmit to a LEO satellite is a bit much to ask for in a portable phone that any joe can use - at least with today's technology. Just think of the EMF from that thing! And they say current cell phones will fry your brain!

    As for laptop batteries, mine already only lasts 3 hours on a GOOD day...

    Thanks, I'll stick to CDPD.

    • how about solar power??? I think there is enought of that in the sahara!!!
      • Not quite true. Solar panels don't gather true solar power. They exploit the reaction between light and a compound. That's why those little solar panels in electronic kits will work with a flash light. Thus "solar power" wouldn't be much more abundant in the Sahara then anywhere else.
        • Er, I think there's more "solar power" available in the desert where you don't have trees, buildings, or _clouds_ blocking the sun. Also, many of these deserts are closer to the equator and tend to get a bit more direct sunlight than most of the US or Europe for example.

          Also, Iridium phones do drain more power than your average cell phone, but it's not enough to be unmanageable with a small solar cell out in the desert.

    • Re:You can already! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by NMerriam ( 15122 )
      the battery power required to transmit to a LEO satellite is a bit much to ask for in a portable phone that any joe can use

      The newest Iridium phones (from Motorola) last for a few hours transmitting on a battery (and the batteries are SMALL). I honestly don't know how they got such efficiency out of it but they do.

      The Globalstar phones are a little less efficient (of course our phone is also a year older) and the Inmarsat M4 unit (64k) only runs for about 20 minutes on battery power, but its not a LEO system so it'll fry your testacles if you stand in front of the antennae. Try explaining that in Swahili...
    • God forfend I should go anywhere without a EMF-microwave-positive ion generator. I'm so saturated with the stuff I would probably drop dead without it.
  • Dont satellite phones require line-of-sight with the dish? In other words, while this may help bring mobile phone service to remote locations like the sahara or oceanic islands, won't they only work outside?
  • Everyday. Sure, pushing the envelope is fun, but I'll hold off on something with THAT much connectivity til its smaller than my current cell-phone (Samsung SCH-3500), has more features, and can connect anywhere. Plus, when is someone going to make a phone that LOOKS like a TOS communicator, and makes the same noise when you open it? (with an option to disable it of course) That would be COOL

    • What I want is TNG comm badges. And when Ericsson (the three sausages brand) announced Bluetooth, I thought I'd have it.

      Picture this: A regular cellphone, just like today's, in my pocket, briefcase, backpack - whereever. Like I care, as long as it's in BT range from my comm badge and earpiece. The comm badges could be styled - different colours, shapes and so on to look like anything from Star Trek comm badges to women's jewelry. If you touch the badge, the voicedial activates and you can go "Computer! Locate Cmdr Taco!" and have the phone dial his cell phone number. (Or just say "Home!" like I do with my Philips SparK (which had working voicedial like five years ago) and it calls home.) The comm badge also activates answering the phone when it rings (when the user wears the earpiece, the phone just whispers "answer it, you bozo" softly in your ear instead of ringing out loud).

      The earpiece uses skull resonance for the speech so you won't need the mike boom. This would also make this system perfect for when I'm on my bike [gpz1100.com].

      Add Bluetooth in the laptop and/or PDA to access your address book/LDAP server to find people and you're good to go. If anyone makes this system now, I want a set as royalty for the idea. ;-)

      • The earpiece uses skull resonance for the speech so you won't need the mike boom.


        So you really want a comm implant - not a comm badge. 'cause the comm badge has a speaker and mic built in, and has to do some interesting noise filtering, I'll bet... especially during a long, drawn out battle when phasers are bursting against the shields and panels are exploding and bodies flying everywhere....


        Ok, back to the subject. Consider a phone system in a hearing aid-style package. Battery, very-low-power transmitter, bone-induction mic and speaker... all in a package that fits inside your ear canal (not for use while playing contact sports!). Relay to the local "network" if you're in-town, or to a relay center in a car, pack, etc. if you're out-and-about.


        Now THAT's technology!

      • The earpiece uses skull resonance for the speech


        Hmmm. The emptier the skull, the better the resonance...


        That explains a lot of cell phone users these days...

    • I too would pay good money for a cellphone that looked and acted like TOS communicators. Perfectly reasonable using (now) cheap technology.

      Paramount would have a fit, though. Copyright, don't you know....

      I think this whole copyright thing is utter crap. Every few years since 1910, "copyright" is extended so that nothing enters the public domain unless deliberately thrown into it.

      Fear the Corporate/Government alliance!

      Bob-

  • Bring a car battery with you... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I had a Mitsubishi "laptop-style" satellite phone that I used with MSat. You could get 9600bps data out of the thing (I tried it once) but the battery life went to shit. Since the phone only transmits when sending data (i.e. voice packets) it was not well-suited for uploading anything of significant size since you'd just end up pegging the transmitter and watching your battery meter fall right before your eyes. That and the huge yellow sticker next to the antenna that warned you to stay the fuck away from the thing when it was on... Yikes.
    • WARNING, THIS DEVICE PRODUCES SIGNIFANT AMOUNTS OF RADIATION WHEN IT IS IN OPERATION. Pregnant women, catholics, those with heart conditions, small pets, children, those with children, the elderly, those wearing hats, and MCSEs should keep ample distance when this device is in operation.

  • Geez, I can't think of a good enough comeback if someone asks me what's bulging in my pocket. "Uhhhh, my Sat Phone antenna."

  • It's only a matter of time before sattelite-based personal communication becomes the norm. Bill gates has been investing [space.com] in this technology since the mid 90's. We just have to wait until he makes his move...
  • Does anyone know what frequencies these sat. phones use?

    Just wondering...
    • The ITU set aside L and S bands for MSS phones to use, 1.5 and 2.5GHz respectively. Extra point bonus because these bands aren't used for anything else thus can be used all over the world with no problems.
      • Those bands definitely are used for other services, and have been for a long time. See this page [doc.gov] for listings of US and International frequency allocations.

  • All we need is scale production. The more they sell the service the cheppear it becomes. But like Iridium it is a snowball down the hill.

    A global communication system is too expensive, so you need to charge really expensive, but if the service is too expensive only few people will buy it, and if only few people buy it it have to be more expensive, so they can recover their investiments, and than being so expensive nobody...

    Maybe if there's a company crazy enough to heavily invest in cheap global access things will begin to roll to the right side.

    • Maybe if there's a company crazy enough to heavily invest in cheap global access things will begin to roll to the right side.

      Right track, but I don't think it will be a private company that will purchase and can afford the sats. What I see happening is a country outright buying the sats. which would take a huge burden off the per-minute charges (thereby lowering them). Once the service rates are reasonably priced (at least 75-80 cents) then they will get a larger user base.
  • Is whether or not anyone will come to the brilliant conclusion to make such services affordable to the everyday citizen and not just their government?
  • was stated in the article.

    Wireless networks provide near-blanket coverage of Europe, the United States, and metro areas on the other continents.

    Unfortunatly these are the nations which have the money to spend on infastructure and sales. If most industrialized nations already have 'near-blanket' coverage you'll only be able to sell this service to people living in the Poles and the Amazon. At a rate of $100/mo and $2.50 a minute, it's just not feasable for most people. Certainly not enough to cover the cost of a bunch of satellites.

    • you'll only be able to sell this service to people living in the Poles and the Amazon. At a rate of $100/mo and $2.50 a minute, it's just not feasable for most people.

      Suppose you are a business. You have your production facility in some 3rd world country (cause its cheaper that way) and your corporate headquarters in US. Obviously you will need people going back and forth, and these business users are the ones who can afford these phones. And now that the satellite companies also offer data services, these phones become much more attractive to such users, and they might consider using them. These phones are certainly not meant to be used by anybody in Sahara (not too many production facilities there), at least not until the price comes down quite a bit.
      • You'd probably not have the production facility in the middle of nowhere, but somewhere reasonable accessible, like in a city. They do have cellphone coverage in third world cities (partly because the wired ones don't work so well), so just pack your GSM next time you go to the third world.
  • ... wouldn't using a satellite phone make it easier for some villainous fiend bent on world domination to focus his orbitting Ion Cannon on you?

    One can never be too careful... strapping on tin-foil hat NOW!

    :)
  • Just looking at the cost of the infrastructure for a typical wireless setup, vs an overhead bird, plus the power of the xmitters, I would say that the low end wireless setups are always going to be less expensive, and that birds in the sky are always going to be relatively pricey. Which will be fine for corporate perks, etc, Bill Gates on Vacation, etc., but not for you average joe.

    but the idea of Bill Gates on vacation in the Sahara is amusing.

    - - -
    Radio Free Nation [radiofreenation.com]
    is a news site based on Slash Code
    "If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
    - - -

  • "32-digit number capacity, illuminated holographic display, multiple language choices"

    What the heck is an 'illuminated holographic display'??? I am scared!

  • I'm confused.

    Ain't the purpose of going to remote places like the Sahara desert to be away from the comforts/stresses of the modern world?

    If I go to the Sahara I sure has hell don't want to hear a fu**ing cell phone ring. They're so annoying.

    Can't we spend 2 weeks a year without electricity?

    I declare next weekend the "run to the woods" week end. Let's go breathe some fresh air.

    JP

    • I caved in an purchased an Iridium phone. I love to backpack, and knowing that my clinets can get a hold of me in an emergency lets me relax and not have to worry about them. Thankfully, it costs them around $2.50 a minuit to call me, so my mini vacations are supprisingly call free. It's a good ballance for me, as I'm a one man shop and can't have my customers looking elsewhere :)

    • Re:Vacation time (Score:4, Insightful)

      by IronChef ( 164482 ) on Friday August 24, 2001 @02:46AM (#2212338)
      Can't we spend 2 weeks a year without electricity?

      You first.

  • Why we hate Iridium and Co. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pq ( 42856 ) <rfc2324&yahoo,com> on Friday August 24, 2001 @12:09AM (#2212087) Homepage
    Radio astronomers around the world hate these satellite phone services, and we wish they would just curl up and die.

    For one thing, they broadcast at 1.6 and 2.5 GHz, smack in the most interesting radio astronomy bands. 1.6 GHz in particular is the frequency at which we see hydroxyl (-OH) radicals, and if you can't see why that is interesting, you need a drink. Fine, so we have global and large scale arrays [nrao.edu] which have antennas seperated by many miles - but to an array, a satellite is a real astronomical signal, and it is very very hard to filter it out (as opposed to a motorcycle spark plug or even cellphones, which do not produce correlated interference at many antennas).

    And what makes it worse is that these companies wilfully violate international treaties which protect precious scraps of the spectrum for astronomy - "We're big companies and we make real money, get out of the way" - and really can't believe that their low low sidebands are stronger than our astronomical signals by factors of 1000s.

    Ah well, there's progress for you - astronomy is sacrificed so that you can download pr0n in the middle of the Sahara. And we nearly had the last laugh, too.

  • Yes and No (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NMerriam ( 15122 ) <NMerriam@artboy.org> on Friday August 24, 2001 @12:14AM (#2212099) Homepage
    We do a lot of extremely remote data projects (Mt Everest, North pole, Amazon river, etc) and I can definitely say that the satellite data market is getting pretty useful for general business use in remote locations. But i don't think a consumer will ever buy one, which means it'll always be more expensive than cellular.

    We have used Iridium, Globalstar, and InMarSat all in the field, and currently the Iridium is tough to beat for a truly mobile solution. The fact that the company gets to make a profit without having to pay for the satellites makes a big difference, of course -- they can afford to sell airtime at less than a dollar in the US (if you buy time in bulk -- it's $1.50 for a non-bulk rate). Globalstar is having a tough time matching that considering they don't have the convenience of going through bankruptcy to write off their infrastructure costs.

    Globalstar does have a better data rate, though -- 9.6k vs Iridium's 2.4k (they do compression "up to" 10k). InMarSat has the great 64k/128k bandwidth but its hardly a handheld unit.

    The biggest disadvantage of course is the line-of-sight requirement. So using a sat phone in a city can be next to impossible (unless you have a dual-mode with cellular, which require tariff agreements overseas and aren't always available), and bringing an external antenna with a long cable is necessary if you're doing data work indoors in a rural area. And of course plenty of power no matter where you are.

    But if you're in the middle of nowhere, it beats the heck out of smoke signals...
    • It's not just remote areas. Try getting any phone service in Djbouti. MANY third world areas have terrible phone service. Even if there were some local cell operator, getting calls out of the country depends on cables that run through other countries that may or may not be on speaking terms with the country you are in at the time.

      Perhaps the Africa One thing will address this, but there IS a market for a reasonably priced (and no, I don't mean it has to compete with cellular) satellite system.

      My non-profit employer has 3 Iridium phones so far in Africa...

      Mark

  • GlobalStar's Data Service (Score:2, Informative)

    by CJB2 ( 454029 )
    I have the GlobalStar service. I purchased it primarily for data service in areas where wireless PCS data service is not available. Though it connects at 9600 bps, the latency is about half that of connecting through my Sprint PCS phone at 14.4 -- about 350ms versus Sprint's 700ms. Since most of my work is done through SSH, the lower latency at 9600 works better for me anyway. It also requires line-of-sight, so unless you're outside, it likely won't be able to reach the satellite. Overall, though it's expensive to use in comparison with normal cell phones, it serves its purpose. If the prices continue to drop to a level where the average consumer can use them, and they include backward-compatibility for the traditional cellular networks, I think these phones could easily become more widespread in the future.
  • Satellite phones are a device that many of the more serious backpackers/campers drool over. Service charged by minute-per-minute use rather than by month of ownership would justify the cost to use one for calling for help in an emergency.

    I know a guy who went on a multi-week rafting trip, and right when they were ~200 kilometres from anyone else a guy in their party had a kidney failure. Now, they had an Emergency Locator Beacon (fyi: an automated radio-based distress signal device) but those can take as much as two or three days to attract rescuers, especially way out there.

    If they'd had satellite phone service they could have called for help immediately. They could have transmitted their GPS coordinates and told them exactly what kind of medical attention their friend needed. But instead they had to paddle for 14 hours nonstop to an airbase on their map that they weren't sure was still manned. Luckily it was, and they got their friend in just as he was going into shock.

    Satellite phones would be invaluable in the bush.

    • If they'd had satellite phone service they could have called for help immediately.

      You don't have to have satellite "service" to call for help. Any cellular phone, including Iridium sat phones, can dial 911, assuming you're in the US. My buddy has 3 surplus Iridium phones that were given to him when Iridium declared bankruptcy. Now that they're back in operations, the phones work, but without a service contract they'll only dial 911. Which is just fine for him, as that's the only reason he would ever need to use one.

      As for normal consumers ever carrying these things around - they'd better get a hell of a lot smaller. The antenna is the size and thickness of a large hot dog. The phone itself is about the size of a brick. It reminds me of early handheld cellular phones... works, but you'd look like an idiot with something that big hanging off your belt. Assuming your pants would even stay up.

    • I don't get it. The whole idea of getting away from civilization is to hang your balls out there. Take a chance. No modern emergency medical care. No 911. If life fucks you over, well tough shit.


      You want emergency response in 20 minutes or less. Don't leave North America or Europe.

  • Designtechnica [designtechnica.com] should have a preview and review of one of these phones soon. Check there to see when they willl show up.
  • If you can't get yourself to conjure up a good mirage, you can always download one from the net! You could also spend your last few moments of (in)sanity rewriting your will, naming whoever ran off with your girlfriend and left you in the middle of the Sahara.
  • The problem I see with all these MSS systems is people are being too fucking demanding on them. Everyone seems to want realtime voice communication as well as a high bandwidth link for playing Quake3 and watching streaming video from the middle of the desert. Instead these services ought to offer by default a SMS-like setup. Text messages don't require low latency or high bandwidth. They're also a bit more effective in an emergency; instead of making a panicked phone call to someone you could press a panic button on your satphone and it will start transmitting your coordinates (after finding them by using GPS signals) and an SOS message. Text services also work well for web based data transmission. Data from web services can be packed into fairly small packets in an AvantGo manner. I see something like a Blackberry RIM with an L or S band antenna and a Li ion high output battery. Oh well.
    • The Orbcomm [orbcomm.com] corporation operates a system that uses text and data transmission for use like you describe. Their transceivers are a little larger than a Blackberry, but are still quite portable. The system also seems to be used extensively for remote telemetry purposes, to which it is especially suited.
  • I am stuck in the siberian mountains.. no food..
    no water.. all i have is this damn laptop with
    satelite connection... hopefully i wont die
    before you reach me...but at least i have
    ./

    i must go now..the bears are eyeing me funny.

  • Satellites don't last forever. Solar panels and batteries degrade over time. Station-keeping propellant is consumed. Transponders burn out.

    How are these companies going to pay for replacement satellites and their associated launch services? The price paid for the Iridium system ($25 million) would not cover the cost of a single Delta or Ariane launch, not to mention the cost of the replacement satellites.

    • As with all other satellite services, the satellites are designed with a life of 10-15 years. The limit being the amount of fuel for stationkeeping not life of solar arrays etc. In that amount of time they generally do a good job of paying for thier replacements.
  • As you can see, the traditional idea of having a satellite phone service wil inevitably fail (*points to Iridium*) due to a lack of market. What needs to be done is similar to how the GPS satellites function. Admittedly, the government funded those. What needs to be seen is their wide usability for many different functions. A single satellite system that doubles for military and civilian use and for a TON of different GPS handheld devices ranging from pocket-sized to ones that go into the car (referring to Onstar). If you want satphones to get going, have the satellites capable of SMS, voice, maybe even compressed images. (This is Channel 11 reporting in the Sahara with live footage of sand moving). Perhaps that may be farfetched, but usually it's the client-side of the sat systems that need to be improved, not the satellite themselves. Anyways, proving a wide usability of different uses will expand the marketing potential to allow the company to have a profit margin (oh my god!).
  • ...don't let that basket burn up over the Pacific ocean.

    Didn't Iridium start deorbiting their satellites? Bad move. If you can't turn your assets into cash, why destroy them? Everyone said that the satellite 2-way com stuff was junk, and people started throwing away their gear. Don't be too quick to condemn something, and if you do, make sure you can go back.

    I just hope Ricochet learns from this and doesn't start popping off their cells from every 5th light pole.

  • Helios killed the satelite phone (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jeppe Salvesen ( 101622 ) on Friday August 24, 2001 @03:21AM (#2212370)
    The solar-powered flying wing will be the new satelite. It is MUCH better suited for being a low-cost phone service provider. It is mucb better suited for just about anything, really. Rather than having tremendous costs of launching satelites, you can have cheap solar-powered wings doing the same job. You can probably even provide better coverage/throughput if you put multiple wings around metropolitan areas.

    Satelite phones sound interesting. However, they're really not.
  • Holy Jebus! Do you seriously want to put one of those against your head? I mean - I know the antennas are directional and point mostly upward but oy vey!

    Nothing to do with the fact that you'd look like a bit of a country member with one.
  • This article is wonderfully written, and is precisely right about so many issues (stunning cell phone network rollout rates killing satellite, LEO vs GEO, latency). But at the very end, he goofed:

    The New Ico satellite design is based on a bent-pipe architecture
    that directly relays signals between an end-user terminal and a ground-based
    gateway station. Each satellite is equipped with more computing power than
    600 Pentium III-based computers. In addition, each satellite features an
    active-array S-band (2.5-GHz) antenna that can form as many as 163
    simultaneous coverage beams.

    I believe the author is contradicting himself here. A bent-pipe design basically means that there is no onboard processing of the signals -- it just get reflected back down to earth, definitely at a different frequency and perhaps in a slightly different direction, but no demod/remod and switching that would required that computing horsepower.


    There is certainly no need for 600 Pentiums in true bent-pipe designs -- satellites have long run on far less computing power than we all have on our desktops. What they do have is gold-plated analog RF technology -- you don't get to service those amplifiers and converters if they fail, so they better Just Work, and for at least 15 years straight.


    I am not familiar with the ICO Global network, but this article does nothing to help clarify whether it is or is not a bent-pipe design. I think it probably isn't, but he misunderstands the usage of "bent-pipe" in the satcom industry. Otherwise an excellent job!

  • Did anyone here see the first episode (maybe it was the second) of "The Chronical" on the Sci-fi channel? If so you know the dangers of this ;)

    Just thought I'd throw that in.

  • Sat phone airtime will always be expensive. Let me compare sat phones with regular cellphones to show why. First, cell phones. I'll use AMPS (the standard used for cellular service in the US, but GSM isn't that much different for the purposes of this discussion).
    • A cell base station costs about US$1M. That's the controller, the amplifiers, the tower, the site, and setup.
    • A base station has up to 1024 channels, at least one of which must be a control channel. Also, no base station uses all the channels: neighboring sites use different channels to prevent interference at the borders. So a site can support roughly 300 simultanious calls (GSM can support about 600 since it uses compression on the voice channel to allow 1 channel to handle 3 to 6 conversations.)
    • The coverage area for a site is roughly a circle of 1 to 10 miles radius from the site (ignoring geographic features), and can be adjusted by how tall the tower is, how much power the site puts out, etc.
    • The burden rate (number of user/number of users actually talking) is between 10 to 100 to one. Run too high a burden rate, and customers get "no channel available" when they try to dial. Then they get a new service provider.
    • So, you need to make a site service about 3000 people, for an initial outlay of US$1M, for a roughly US$300/person outlay. That's not hard to recover

    Now, let's look at sat phones:
    • The cost of a "site" is about US$300M or more. This includes the cost of the bird, the cost of launch, and the cost of failures to launch. You usually don't have the truck delivering the base station to a terrestrial site explode as it leaves the factory.
    • The number of channels isn't that much different - it's a factor of how complex the receiver and transmitter on the bird is, and the simple physics of radio waves: there are just so many hertz of bandwidth that are suitable for use. So about 300 users at one time per bird.
    • The coverage radius for a bird is many hundreds of miles in radius. This is a factor of the orbital altitude and the antenna design of the bird.
    • As for cellular, you want to keep the burden rate down. As a result, you can only have about 3000 subscribers per 100 mile radius, as opposed to the 300 subscribers per 1 mile radius of cellular. You can support a population density of less than one ten-thousandth that of cellular.
    • Therefor, you now have a cost of US$300M/3000 users, or US$300k per user, a thousand times more costly.

    And remember, any advances in vocoder technology, modulation technology, or transmitter technology will benefit both terrestrial cellular and sat phones equally. Except that it is a lot easier to upgrade a terrestrial site than a bird in LEO.

    As a result, there will always be far fewer sat phone users than cell phone users. All the non-recurring engineering costs, all the fixed costs of manufacture, all the fixed costs of service will have to borne by fewer users.
  • If I were sitting in the middle of the Sahara with a laptop and a satellite phone, I think my #1 priority would be to work out how to get the hell out of there.

    Alternatively, I'd phone one of these "we'll deliver anywhere" pizza places in LA, and see if they honor their word.

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